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People seem to love laughing at failure to the point that when something is attempted and hilariously or painfully or bothly does not happen, we call it a FAIL or MAJOR FAIL or EPICFAIL! Why do we do this? Are we embarrassed for the person who tries? Are we scared at how failure can hurt, and laugh as protection? I don’t know, but I think it keeps up from seeing how failure does not have to be the end result or

[Crystal, one of our 2014 summer Maker Corps members — and now a MAKESHOP Educator! — reflects on facilitating recycled sculpture activities] Of my time spent in MAKESHOP this summer, one of the most remarkable activities I facilitated was Recycled Sculpture. For those of you who haven’t been to the MAKESHOP, Recycled Sculpture is an activity that is set up for visitors to create their own works of

Throughout the month of August we built our very own Skyworld. We have made cardboard cities and underwater aquariums but never a world in the sky. What would a Skyworld need? What would be the preferred mode of transportation? Where would people live, eat and work? A lot of these questions were answered throughout the month as visitors added their own creations to Skyworld. We were able to get our Exhibits Team to r

It’s now the beginning of September and most schools are back in session. In honor of the new school year, I wanted to start sharing some videos we shot last summer with Pittsburgh-area educators. What does it mean to be a maker? Why make in schools? Why make at all? In this first short video, a middle school teacher, university professor, community educator and curriculum coordinator each present some of the c

We recently held a Maker Educator Boot Camp (our version of an exhaustive professional development for teachers and educators) at West Liberty University’s Center for Arts and Education. The teachers got the chance to learn some teaching techniques centered around making and exploring. I was only able to attend one day of the four day Boot Camp but just one day was special enough. I taught the digital applicat

MAKESHOP STORAGE BEFORE AFTER MAKESHOP goes through a lot of materials (fabric, recycled objects, etc.) every week. You would think that we would run out of stuff but no; we probably have more stuff in our storage space in the Museum’s basement than in the actual MAKSESHOP. The motto of the Museum might as well be “We Never Throw Anything Away”. Our storage space recently got a fabulous makeover